Book Review: the Fault In Our Stars

The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green is not what I expected.  I won't tell you exactly what I expected, because that may ruin it for you when you read it.  What's that you say, you weren't planning on reading it?  Well you really should.  It is an excellent book about young love, loss, and how you need to live and love now, regardless of your situation, because it is the love that is important, not how long it lasts.

Hazel has thyroid cancer, which has metastasized to her lungs, she knows she will not live to a ripe old age, but for right now a drug is preventing the tumors in her lungs from growing any larger.  So it has arrested, but not cured her condition.  She still needs to use an oxygen tank.  Certainly not a life anyone would want as a sixteen year old, until she meets Augustus Waters at her cancer support group.  Augustus is in remission from a cancer that resulted in an amputated leg.  Hazel tries to keep Augustus (fantastic name Augustus) at arms length, because she doesn't want to hurt him when she dies.  "I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to try to minimize that casualties, okay?"  Fantastic line, although all for naught, as they fall in love anyway.  These characters are well written, and it is a great young love story.

The book makes some fascinating observations about what it means to be a terminally ill child, and what it means to be the parent of a terminally ill child.  It is an important book for both parents and their teens to read.  It is interesting to see what happens to teenagers who have lost their sense of immortality.  They know they will not live forever, but are determined to live while they can.

In the end, The fault In Our Stars, is an epic love story that stretches on to infinity.  It just happens that, "some infinities are longer than others."